Guardians Pitcher Tanner Bibee Scoffs At AL Central Projections

Cleveland Guardians pitcher Tanner Bibee doesn't want to hear any noise about his team not being able to defend its AL Central crown in 2025. In fact, he downright wants people to sleep on the Guardians, because according to how he feels, that will give them a tough edge this season.

That's the type of edge a team that went to the ALCS could use to make it over the hump. Sure, they couldn't get past the New York Yankees in 2024, but that doesn't mean the Guardians shouldn't be considered the AL Central favorite heading into 2025. At the very least, the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox have to knock them off the top of the mountain before we can count the Guardians out.

That is what the recent AL Central projections are showing right now, though. The Baseball Prospectus PECOTA Standings have the Guardians finishing third in the division behind the Twins and Royals. FanGraphs is predicting a fourth-place finish behind the Twins, Tigers and Royals and they're giving Cleveland an 18.7% chance to make the playoffs.

Those aren't fun projections for the Guardians as pitchers and catchers start getting warm over in Goodyear, Arizona, but righty starter Tanner Bibee doesn't care.

“Projections are projections,” Bibee said on a Zoom call, according to Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com. “No one predicted what we were going to do last year and we did it."

Bibee went on to say that being counted out by these pre-Spring Training projections could end up leading to a fun season in Cleveland. There's something exciting about being counted out yet finding a way to prove your doubters wrong. That's the type of energy that Bibee, at least, is bringing to this conversation.

"The past few years we’ve always been in a position to prove people wrong. It’s a lot easier to play the game like that than when you’re the lead dog. It’s a lot more fun when you end up on top when you were supposed to be the underdog," he said.

Ultimately these projections are just that: projections.

The Guardians weren't expected to be all that good last year in manager Stephen Vogt's first season, yet they went 92-69 and took a game from the powerful Yankees in the ALCS. Vogt was named the AL Manager of the Year, and it's not like he's forgotten everything he knows about baseball.

Sure, they'll be without Andres Gimenez and Josh Naylor, who were both traded in the offseason, but they picked up Carlos Santana to play first base and José Ramírez and Steven Kwan aren't going anywhere.

Oh, and then there's Bibee. He had a 12-8 record last season with a 3.47 ERA and 1.12 WHIP. He was one of the best pitchers in the AL, and he's not going anywhere either.

Ric Flair famously said, "To be the man, you gotta beat the man," and the Guardians are the top dog in the AL Central until proven otherwise.